Didcot Railway Centre has completed a £125,000 fundraising drive so it can rattle ahead with its future development plans.

Managers at the steam railway centre next to Didcot Parkway have taken out a 50-year lease from Network Rail so they can pursue long-term plans including an extension, a new engine shed, visitor centre, a larger shop and better catering facilities.

Richard Croucher, chairman of the Great Western Society, signed the lease in the museum building at the railway centre.

Mr Croucher said: “We would like to thank everyone who has supported us and made a financial contribution to allow the Great Western Society to achieve this aim.

“It draws to a close nine-and-a-half years of negotiations.

“We are now starting to look at the next stages of development at Didcot Railway Centre.”

It is understood that the centre will get better rent rates under the new lease – £1,000 a year compared to £13,800. Donations to buy the lease came from some of the 4,000 members of the Great Western Society.

The new agreement could allow Network Rail to demand some land from the centre of the site to widen the main line’s so-called North curve, and if this does go ahead, the centre’s main demonstration line will have to move across by about 12ft.

However, centre manager Roger Orchard said earlier that he did not think this was likely to go ahead.

The society celebrates its 50th birthday this year and 2011 also marks 44 years of its use of the centre, which is built around a former GWR engine shed.

The attraction is often hired out by film crews for movies or TV dramas.

In October last year, the centre was turned into a film set for the Warner Brothers’ sequel to the acclaimed 2009 Sherlock Holmes movie starring Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law.

The centre still has an original engine shed and is often used for platform shots doubling as Paddington Station in London.

There have been more than 100 visits from film crews in the past 25 years.

Didcot Railway Centre opened in 1967 and now attracts 50,000 visitors a year from across Oxfordshire and around the world.

The centre is the only heritage railway in the country to offer Thomas the Tank engine rides at Christmas time and Thomas events throughout the year attract visitors from abroad, including Singapore, Atlanta, Georgia, and Paris.

The centre features 24 steam locomotives including the broad guage replica Fire Fly and Steam Railmotor 93, built in 1908.

The attraction is open every weekend throughout the year.

For further information visit didcotrailwaycentre.org.uk